God’s Word for You

2 Chronicles 29:17-24 Sin and guilt

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, May 21, 2025

17 It was the first day of the first month when they began the consecration, and by the eighth day of the month they has gotten as far as the porch of the LORD. For eight more days they continued to consecrate the House of the LORD. They finished on the sixteenth day of the first month. 18 Then they went in to King Hezekiah and reported: “We have purified the whole House of the LORD, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table for setting out the consecrated bread, with all its utensils. 19 We have prepared and consecrated all the articles that King Ahaz removed during his reign, when he was unfaithful. They are here now before the LORD’s altar.” 20 Early the next morning King Hezekiah rose and gathered the city officials together and went up to the House of the LORD. 21 They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven male lambs and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. The king commanded the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer these on the altar of the LORD. 22 So they slaughtered the bulls, and the priests took the blood and sprinkled it on the altar. Then they slaughtered the rams and sprinkled their blood on the altar. They also slaughtered the lambs and sprinkled their blood on the altar. 23 The goats for the sin offering were brought before the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them. 24 Then the priests slaughtered the goats and presented their blood on the altar for a sin offering to atone for all Israel. The order of the king was the burnt offering and the sin offering for all of Israel.

The clean-up of the temple lasted a little over two weeks. Some readers are aware of the sometimes confusing way that ancient Israelites counted days, with “eighth day” meaning a week later, and so forth (Leviticus 12:3). But in this case, our author is clear that when he says eight days and then another eight days, he means that the cleanup ended on the sixteenth of the month. This put them two days beyond the beginning of the Passover festival (Leviticus 23:5-6). And yet even then, the temple was not yet in working order for regular worship and sacrifice. First, there needed to be a sacrifice to atone for sin and to make the temple ceremonially clean and dedicated once again.

This ceremony began early in the morning on the seventeenth of Nisan (April 14th), 715 BC. The men who brought the first sacrifices were the officials or “sarim” (which can also mean princes) of the city of Jerusalem. He was bringing the leaders of the people along with him. “We,” he was saying with his actions, “are the ones who were in power when my father Ahaz committed the sins that desecrated this place. We repent. My father’s sins infected us and our lives and our families and the people we are supposed to help, serve, and protect.” They are the ones who brought the first sacrifices into the temple court. Twenty-eight animals, all male, were brought forward on their leashes, ropes, and leads.

Seven bulls were offered. Bulls were an offering for sin. The sins of Ahaz had touched everyone, but all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. A sin offering had to be made.

Seven rams were offered. Rams were also sin offerings. By offering both, the leaders of Jerusalem were showing their willingness to confess all of their sins. And the number of the animals, seven, was a symbolic numeral. In some cases, paying seven times for a crime showed that the unholiness of the sin was covered. “If he is caught,” Solomon said about a sinner, “he must pay sevenfold, though it costs him all the wealth of his house” (Proverbs 6:30).

Seven male lambs were offered. Male lambs were brought as guilt offerings. The main difference between a sin offering and a guilt offering is that a sin offering was for a sin of commission (an act one commits), but a guilt offering was for a sin of omission (an act one should have done but failed to do). A guilt offering was also presented to atone for a sin one committed intentionally. The death of the Messiah, Jesus, was to be an offering for the guilt of mankind (Isaiah 53:10). Professor David Chytraeus equates this offering with the sin in Paul’s great exchange verse: “God made him who had no sin to be sin (that is, the ‘asham or guilt offering) for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In this way, Christ atoned for all sin.

Seven male goats were offered. For a sin offering, female goats were usually required (sa’ariyah, Leviticus 5:6). But a male goat was the sin offering for someone who was a leader in the community (Leviticus 4:22-23). King Hezekiah read the Law of Moses very carefully, and tried his best to keep it to the letter. The leaders laid their hands on these animals to confess their own sins before God.

When these animals were killed, their blood was caught in special pans, each one designed to catch the blood of the animal in question, large ones for bulls, small ones for lambs, and so on. Then the priests took the blood (the only time they were allowed contact with blood) and sprinkled it on the sides of the altar. The searing heat of the bronze altar made the blood sizzle into smoke, but some of the blood also fell to the earth and sank into the soil. From an ancient perspective, this involved earth, air, and fire, and since the offerings were also washed, the so-called fourth element of water was also involved. While we would be quick to avoid any superstitious meaning to this observation, we might see it from the point of view of the ancient Israelites as showing God’s forgiveness using every aspect of God’s created world, and the prayer that God would forgive mankind for bringing God’s curse upon the world (Genesis 3:17, 5:29).

Verse 24, in whatever way it is translated, reminds us that these sacrifices were done by the order of King Hezekiah. He did not shrink from his responsibility as king of Judah. Whether his predecessor had been another man or his father did not make any difference. As king, he had to do his part to ask for God’s forgiveness on the people. If he had not, a prophet or a priest would certainly have stood up to him to call for his repentance. But as things were, Hezekiah led by example.

The Fourth Commandment tells us to obey our parents and also our government. But Hezekiah’s actions show us that the place of a government is also to stand up to admit faults, to openly repent before God, and even to accept consequences for a nation’s errors, omissions, and sins. Let no one say that a government is unable to commit a sin. God will hold the figurative Babylon of Revelation to account: “Her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes… Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself” (Revelation 18:5,7). But before we grumble and complain about the wrongs of parent or of a government, we need to be careful to remember our place under the Fourth Commandment, and that “it is because everyone wishes to be his own master, to be free from all authority, care nothing for anyone, and do whatever he please. So God punishes one knave by means of another, When you defraud or despise your master, another person comes along and treats you likewise” (Large Catechism, I:154). When we feel troubled or wronged by a parent, an employer, a superior officer, or a government, our first step should be toward repentance for our sin and guilt, and not to complain. When God hears the cries of his faithful people rising up to heaven, just as he said to Moses (Exodus 3:7), he listens and he acts. Therefore we want to make every effort to be his faithful people, to pray in faith, and to leave whatever will be his will to happen as he has planned. Nothing we can ever desire or do can match God’s holy will.

Blessed be his name forever.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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